Carleton College Students Learn Art of Witness Narrative Firsthand: Author Patricia Weaver Francisco Shares Journey of Recovery from Rape

In two Carleton College classrooms recently, more than 50 students witnessed a personal testament to the transformative power of the written word when author Patricia Weaver Francisco visited the College to discuss her latest book, Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery.

Francisco’s book focuses on her personal journey with rape, and the students in both classes sat focused intently on her as she recounted aspects of the rape itself, the effect it had on her interpersonal relationships, and her emotional and physical recovery. The first class, an introductory women’s studies course, has been studying violence against women and other issues concerning contemporary women, and the second class, “Witness Narratives: Memoirs of Survival,” has been learning about the art of writing about difficult experiences.

Listening to Francisco “was a very physical experience,” said senior Linh Trieu, who was sitting in the front row of the women’s studies course. “I
found her words very powerful and being so close to her while she discussed such a traumatic event was overwhelming.”

Francisco, a fiction writer who teaches creative writing at Hamline University, wrote Telling 15 years after a stranger raped her. She was very
open and frank with the students, reading passages from the book and fielding questions about fear, marriage, and societal and cultural stigmas.

She stated that her original intent in writing the book was to provide rape survivors with “a story in their pocket”-something she found lacking
during her own recovery process. “Rape is the unspeakable crime. I realized there were no stories from women who had traveled down the long
road of recovery-we hadn’t discovered a language for that yet.” She said there were many accounts of the act of rape itself, written shortly after the
event, but “those didn’t speak to me.”

Consequently, many of her readers have been surprised by the lyrical quality of her writing in Telling, she told the students in the memoir-writing class. “Because of the subject matter, they were expecting harsh, in-your-face language.”

Francisco advised the students, who are working on their own memoirs and whose topics range from relationships with parents to struggles with
disease and addiction, that finding the appropriate voice and time span is essential. “I wanted to say ‘I’m alright now, this is a story you can hear.’ I
didn’t want readers to relive my rape in a visceral way.”

In the process, writing the book became a transforming event in her own life. “I was able to make sense and give shape to something that already
belonged to me-place it in a bigger context,” she said. She told the student writers that writing a memoir is challenging because it means you have to write about something in an interesting way for someone who doesn’t share your memories.

Jane McDonnell, senior lecturer in women’s studies at Carleton and author of Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Writing Memoir, brought
Francisco to her classes in part because the author is “such a talented writer and speaks so well about writing about a difficult experience.” But
McDonnell also thought her students might benefit from discussing this particular subject. “I’ve heard that one out of four women will either be
raped or be the object of an attempted rape while they are in college. They are especially vulnerable during their first few weeks or months. That
figure is staggering to me,” she said.

Indeed, Francisco’s overall message to the students was that “we can talk about this. We need to be courageous listeners and open ourselves up to
listening to stories. Any level of talking about an experience with sexual violence will begin the process of transformation.”

Francisco ended her visit to Carleton with a public reading of her book in the College’s library.